The final rounds of the 2013-14 Scholastic Chess Tournament were played out on Monday. The boards will come back out and pieces placed on squares in September. Chess programs at area schools will continue to teach kids from the basics to advanced techniques throughout the school year.

The popular and long-running chess tournament in Ridgecrest is one of the only activities that allows all students from the area to participate against each other. There is no spelling or geography bee, no “mathletic” competition that pits the minds of students against each other in a friendly, non-contact sport. The chess tournament has students from Sierra Sands School District, Ridgecrest Charter School and even home-schooled kids competing for trophies and bragging rights.

The final rankings for this year’s tournament has Gateway Elementary at the top of the K-6 crowd, Murray as the top middle school overall, and for high school, there are but two teams, Burroughs High School and “The World.” The “World” consists of every non-BHS-attending student in the tournament.

Dwight Morgan, retired biology teacher from Burroughs, has been putting on the tournaments for years.

“We had our sixth and final scholastic chess tournament for the school year at Gateway Elementary School. We had 105 students attend. We averaged 107 per tournament this year. The players were divided into five sections according to grade level: K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Students wanting a more challenging game could play in higher grade levels,” Morgan stated in an email.

Morgan added, “In addition to the regular awards (59 trophies, 46 medals), gold medals were also given to the 24 students who came to all six tournaments this year. The top individual grade level champions were given trophies and runners-up received medals. Finally team trophies were awarded for the top teams. Team scores are determined by adding up the scores of the top four finishers from a school.”

Fuller also won a $100 scholarship for being the top high school grade player.

Overall team 2013-14 champions are; in elementary school division; Gateway first, Richmond second and Las Flores third; in the middle school category, Murray took gold and Monroe; high school champions are Burroughs with “The World” coming in second for the umpteenth time in a row.

Page 2 of 2 - The regular February Tournament section winners include: K-1: first place Isen Koontz, first grade, Charter, with four wins, no losses; 2-3 grade: Andrew Bui, second-grader, Gateway, five wins, no losses; 4-5 grade: (tie) Rachel Huynh, fourth-grader, Gateway, and Robbie Forbis, fourth-grader, Gateway, four wins and one draw. The one draw came when they played each other.

In the 6-8 grade division: Keval Joshi, fifth-grader, Las Flores, took first place with four wins and one draw; in the 9-12 grade: Eric Warda, ninth-grader, homeschooled from Tehachapi, with five wins, no losses.

The next tournament will be Sept. 1, Labor Day, at Gateway Elementary School, and this will be the first tournament of the 2014-15 season.

“We don’t have a name for our program. We simply call it ‘Scholastic Chess’ for now, until I come up with something better,” Morgan stated in an email. Morgan’s statement sounds like a challenge to the community to come up with a catchy and exciting name for the popular tournament.